The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) will open two of eight designated commercial and recreational oyster harvest areas in Galveston Bay on Nov. 2, marking the start of Texas’ oyster harvesting season.
TPWD officials said a summer marked by a red tide event and little rain didn't provide the ideal conditions for oyster growth. To open a public oyster harvest area, officials mustdetermine whether there are enough legal-sized oysters, which are three inches or greater, in the area.
While shellfish harvest areas TX-5 and TX-1 opened, the remaining designated areas in Galveston Bay did not come anywhere close to meeting the opening threshold,Kelley Kowal, a regional director with coastal fisheries at TPWD, said.
Kowal said having only a few open areas is typical of what officials have seen in the last few years as the odds have stacked against oysters in Galveston Bay.
In 2024, Galveston County Judge Mark Henry issued a disaster declarationfor the area’s oyster industry after flooding devastated oyster numbers. In 2008, Hurricane Ike also damaged the oyster habitat in Galveston Bay to the point that oyster harvesting on the eastern side of the bay was closed for two years.
Before 2008, Galveston Bay brought in90% of the oyster production in Texas —approximately six million pounds — but since that time, it has not topped more than 3.5 million pounds in a year, according to the Galveston Bay Foundation.At the beginning of the 2025 season, TPWD opened up three out of the eight oyster areas.
However, Kowal said even with only a few open public harvest areas, it's possible the oyster harvest season could still be productive.
"It’s just going to depend on the amount of fishing pressure and then the environmental conditions," Kowal said.
Beyond that, oyster farmers face economic pressures, high fuel costs, and market pressures that could lead to lower demand for Galveston Bay oysters.
"Just the way the economy is, and there’s a lot of oysters in Louisiana right now, so you have competing markets, so I don’t think that there’s going to be a high demand or a lot of pressure when the season opens," Justin Woody,vice president of oyster wholesaler Jerry’s Seafood, said."On a normal opening day in Galveston Bay, it is typically around 150 boats. Last year on opening day, I counted around 75, so about half of what is normally out there, and this year, probably going to be even less."
Less harvesting in public areas could be beneficial for the reefs, though, according to Woody, who said it would give the oyster reefsin need of restorationsome breathing room.
"If you reduce the amount of boats harvesting, you reduce the pressure; you’re trying to do a maintenance-style restoration on existing reefs. You could get back to a point where it’s keeping up," Woody said.
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